By: Jože Biščak
When one sometimes thinks that left-wing opposition, self-proclaimed civil society, and the media mainstream are not driven by pure hatred of the center-right government, especially towards the Prime Minister Janez Janša, and that they still have a bit of common sense, one is disappointed all over again. If we deduct the protest of students and teachers because of the “deprived childhood”, which was pure abuse of children, the completely incomprehensible, even poisonous, arrows fly to Gregorčič street due to higher education, because the government dared to doubt the expediency of the tender for enrolment in the next academic year. Not because it would have anything against educated people, but because the Slovenian education system “produces” mostly sociologists, philosophers, artists, and humanists, and less people who know how to operate on the heart, electrify a residential neighbourhood, build a skyscraper, code a computer programme, and grow pest-resistant vegetables.
The first group is brought up to control social discourse about politics, economics, and culture. In an economy that creates real value, they are mostly unemployable, there they cannot help themselves with advice about “denied inequality” or “injustices” in the work process. It is different with an engineer who knows how to improve and increase production through innovation. Think about who you call when your washing machine breaks down. A service technician who repairs it, or a social scientist who philosophises that individual parts of the machine are made by children in Africa and Asia. And that you do not actually need a washing machine because you have your hands. But, believe me, such a “smart” head has much better appliances at home than you have, s/he just wants to convince you to step into the front lines against “injustices”, and s/he will join you later because s/he still needs a washing machine so that s/he has time to philosophise.
The response of the privileged subsystems in the swamp of cultural Marxism to the conduct of the government has been violent, and the main argument, you will not believe, is that the government is interfering where matters have hitherto been a mere “formality”. Yes, my dears, that is the problem – in the mere “formality”, in the confirmation of something that no one in the country needs, in the confirmation of something that satisfies only the ideological direction as the consecrated imagined it: to create a bunch of social scientists who will lecture on social justice. But no one thinks that sooner or later those who feed all this with the work of their hands will disappear.
Intellectually academic terrorism has long dominated the education system, which has not undergone serious reform since the independence in order to follow real needs. The current ratios, where 39 percent of study places are planned for arts, humanities, and social sciences, and two percentage points less for science, technology, and informational-communicative technology, do not reflect reality. They only cause the need to invent new jobs for the unemployed (mostly in the public sector), and we need to import engineers, doctors, and operators. And then it happens that those who actually have nothing to do with the real sector talk about the economy. Is it just me or do you also think this does not fit together?
For many years, this cargo cult has been establishing, a term first used by physicist Richard Feyman. It is an effect observed in the Pacific Islands during World War II. The Americans set up bases there, repaying the locals with cans or industrial products. At the end of the war, the soldiers left, and the locals tried to recall the cargo planes by imitating foreigners: they lit torches alongside abandoned tracks, made wooden headphones and microphones, and mumbled something into them, as they had seen soldiers do before. In vain. The bearers of the “gifts” did not return. It is similar with Slovenian worshipers of the cargo cult. They completely ignore the real needs for staff, as they believe that any education brings prosperity to all.
And then they are surprised that no plane lands here anymore.
Jože Biščak, editor-in-chief of Democracija magazine and president of the Slovenian Association of Patriotic Journalists. He is the author of three books: Stories from the Hayek Cafe, Notes from a Conservative Liberal and Journey with Orwell.